Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon - Private Life

Private Life

Reportedly, her first extramarital affair took place in 1966, with her daughter's godfather, Bordeaux wine producer Anthony Barton, and a year later she had a one-month liaison with Robin Douglas-Home, a nephew of British politician Alec Douglas-Home. Margaret claimed that her relationship with Douglas-Home was platonic, but her letters to him (which were later sold) were intimate. Douglas-Home, a depressive, committed suicide 18 months after the split with Margaret. Claims that she was romantically involved with musician Mick Jagger, actor Peter Sellers, and Australian cricketer Keith Miller are unproven. A 2009 biography of actor David Niven had assertions, based on information from his widow and a good friend of Niven's, that he too had had an affair with the princess. Another association was supposedly with John Bindon, a cockney actor who had spent time in prison. His story, sold to the Daily Mirror, boasted of a close relationship with Margaret and, while it was debatable, the publicity that followed further damaged her reputation.

By the early 1970s, the Snowdons had drifted apart. In September 1973, Colin Tennant (later Baron Glenconner) introduced Margaret to Roddy Llewellyn. Llewellyn was seventeen years her junior. In 1974, he was a guest at the holiday home she had built on Mustique. It was the first of several visits. Margaret described their relationship as "a loving friendship". Once, when Llewellyn left on an impulsive trip to Turkey, Margaret became emotionally distraught and took an overdose of sleeping tablets. "I was so exhausted because of everything", she later said, "that all I wanted to do was sleep." As she recovered, her ladies-in-waiting kept Lord Snowdon away from her, afraid that seeing him would distress her further.

In February 1976, a picture of Margaret and Llewellyn in swimsuits on Mustique was published on the front page of the News of the World tabloid. The press portrayed Margaret and Llewellyn as a predatory older woman and her toyboy lover. The following month, the Snowdons publicly acknowledged that their marriage had irretrievably broken down. There were calls to remove her from the Civil list. Labour MPs denounced her as "a royal parasite" and a "floosie". On 11 July 1978, the Snowdons' divorce was finalised. It was the first divorce of a senior Royal since Princess Victoria of Edinburgh in 1901. In December Snowdon married Lucy Lindsay-Hogg.

While on a fund-raising tour of the United States in October 1979 on behalf of the Royal Opera House, Margaret became embroiled in a controversy following the assassination of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Mountbatten and members of his family were killed by a bomb planted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Seated at a dinner reception in Chicago with columnist Abra Anderson and mayor Jane Byrne, Margaret told them that the royal family had been moved by the many letters of condolence from Ireland. The following day, a single press report, written by Anderson's rival Irv Kupcinet, claimed that Margaret had referred to the Irish as "pigs". Margaret, Anderson and Byrne all issued immediate denials, but the damage was already done. The rest of the tour drew demonstrations, and Margaret's security was doubled in the face of physical threats.

In 1981, Llewellyn married Tatiana Soskin, whom he had known for ten years. Margaret remained close friends with them both. In January 1981, Margaret was a guest on the BBC Radio 4 progamme Desert Island Discs.